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May 23·edited May 23Author

"Loose Talk About the End of Everything"

Victor D. Hansen

After a recent summit between new partners China and Russia, General Secretary Xi Jinping and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin issued an odd one-sentence communique: “There can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be fought.”

No one would disagree, even though several officials of both hypocritical governments have previously threatened their neighbors with nuclear attacks.

But still, why did the two feel the need to issue such a terse statement—and why now?

Rarely has the global rhetoric of mass annihilation reached such a crescendo as the present, as existential wars rage in Ukraine and Gaza.

In particular, Putin at least believes that he is finally winning the Ukraine conflict. Xi seems to assume that conventional ascendant Chinese military power in the South China Sea has finally made the absorption of Taiwan practicable.

They both believe that the only impediment to their victories would be an intervention from the U.S. and the NATO alliance, a conflict that could descend into mutual threats to resort to nuclear weapons.

Thus the recent warnings of Xi and Putin.

Almost monthly, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un continues his weary threats to use his nuclear arsenal to destroy South Korea or Japan.

A similarly monotonous, pro-Hamas Turkish president, Recep Erdogan, regularly threatens Armenians with crazy talk of repeating the “mission of our grandfathers.” And he occasionally warns Israelis and Greeks that they may one day wake up to Turkish missiles raining down upon their cities.

More concretely, for the first time in history, Iran attacked the homeland of Israel. It launched the largest wartime array of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones in modern history—over 320 projectiles.

Iran’s theocrats simultaneously claim they are about ready to produce nuclear weapons. And, of course, since 1979, Iran has periodically promised to wipe Israel off the map and half the world’s Jews with it.

Most ignore these crazy threats and write them off as the braggadocio of dictators. But as we saw on October 7, the barbarity of human nature has not changed much from the premodern world, whether defined by savage beheading, mutilations, murdering, mass rape, torture, and hostage taking of Israeli elderly, women, and children.

But what has radically transformed are the delivery systems of mass death—nuclear weapons, chemical gases, biological agents, and artificial-intelligence-driven delivery systems.

Oddly, the global reaction to the promise of Armageddon remains one of nonchalance. Most feel that such strongmen rant wildly but would never unleash weapons of civilizational destruction.

Consider that there are as many autocratic nuclear nations (e.g., Russia, China, Pakistan, North Korea, and perhaps Iran) as democratic ones (U.S., Britain, France, Israel, and India). Only Israel has an effective anti-ballistic missile dome. And the more the conventional power of the West declines, the more in extremis it will have to rely on a nuclear deterrent—at a time when it has no effective missile defense of its homelands.

In a just-released book, The End of Everything, I wrote about four examples of annihilation—the classical city-state of Thebes, ancient Carthage, Byzantine Constantinople and Aztec Tenochtitlán—in which the unimaginable became all too real.

In all these erasures, the targeted, naïve states believed that their illustrious pasts, rather than a realistic appraisal of their present inadequate defenses, would ensure their survival.

All hoped that their allies—the Spartans, the anti-Roman Macedonians, the Christian nations of Western Europe, and the subject cities of the Aztecs—would appear at the eleventh hour to stave off their defeat.

Additionally, these targeted states had little understanding of the agendas and capabilities of the brilliantly methodic killers outside their walls—the ruthless wannabe philosopher Alexander the Great, the literary patron Scipio Aemilianus, the self-described intellectual Mehmet II, and the widely read Hernán Cortés—who all sought to destroy utterly rather than merely defeat their enemies.

These doomed cities and nations were reduced to rubble or absorbed by the conquerors. Their populations were wiped out or enslaved, and their once-hallowed cultures, customs, and traditions lost to history. The last words of the conquered were usually variations of, “It can’t happen here.”

If the past is any guide to the present, we should take heed that what almost never happens in war can certainly still occur.

When killers issue wild, even lunatic, threats, we should nonetheless take them seriously.

We should not count on friends or neutrals to save our civilization. Instead, Americans should build defense systems over the skies of our homeland, secure our borders, ensure our military operates on meritocracy, cease wild deficit spending and borrowing, and rebuild both our conventional and nuclear forces.

Otherwise, we will naively—and fatally—believe that we are magically exempt when the inconceivable becomes all too real.

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Snow ball rolling down hill to hell!

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Yes, unstoppable unless we take action, admittedly there is a less than one chance out of three that we will be successful in our efforts, but we have got to try!

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1. ✔️ 2. ✔️3. ✔️ 4. ✔️ 5. ✔️ 6. ✔️ 7. ✔️ 8. ✔️

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Overall this article borders on the spectacular.We especially like and always prefer pragmatic..comprehensive..historical to postmodern analysis with zero appeasement and hopefully constructive solution proviso Very fine writing.Still at the end of the day..it's the scheming conniving reprobate machinations of the Synagogue of Satan ..onerous obvious odious homicidal maniacs..clear degenerates..Thank you Edwin for a scholarly incisive non pareil commentary.*God Bless.

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You had me with you until 8.

There is no significant "resource depletion". We have more resources than ever. The leftists create fake "emergencies" by claiming we are running out of everything. But we have never run out of anything.

In 1972, the Club of Rome predicted that by the 21st century the world would have run out of copper, gold, silver, mercury, and zinc by now. In the 21st century, Leftists were still claiming that we were running out of everything from oil, helium, sand, and bananas to air, trees, and water.

“…despite what doomsday predictions may suggest, the Earth has not run out of any resources nor is it likely that it will run out of any in the near future.” Yale Scientific

https://michael796.substack.com/p/leftist-untruth-4-catastrophism

Running out of resources, overpopulation, manmade climate change... they are leftist lies used to call for more government intervention in our lives.

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May 23·edited May 24Author

Even fresh water, except for the Aral Sea, the Soviets pumped it dry. Or the fresh water problem in California, let it run to the sea to 'protect' a species that no-one had ever heard of before. More government ms-management and then claims we are running out of resources. Don't do necessary fire breaks, forest floor clean-up, Canada, California, and countless other places with tremendous forest fire problems, arnson makes far worse.

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May 23Liked by Edwin

YESSSSS... abiotic oil for example. It is mis mangement of the resources you DO have... waste, fraud, abuse, and elites locking up resources for themselves afraid to share and grow with the rest of the pop.. it is not the population problem its the elite problem!

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US banks have loaned $1 trillion to less regulated 'shadow banks

Debt flowing to non-depository financial entities reached $1.0024 trillion last month, representing a roughly 12.16% surge from 2023.

The amount of loans made by US banks to less regulated shadow lenders surpassed $1 trillion in January.

Outstanding loans to non-depository financial entities like private equity firms and hedge funds reached $1.0024 trillion last month, representing a roughly 12.16% year-over-year surge from January 2023, according to data released by the US Federal Reserve on Friday. It has become one of banking's fastest-growing businesses at a time when lending volumes overall are growing at a slower rate.

The sharp rise in lending to shadow banks has raised concerns among regulators over potential systemic risks, The Financial Times said on Monday.

These so-called shadow banks are often less regulated, and many lend money to enterprises where returns may be greater but risks are much higher than what a regulated institution would be able to tolerate.

https://www.businessinsider.com/banks-shadow-lenders-1-trillion-fed-private-credit-hedge-funds-2024-2?op=1

First Shadow Banks, Now Shadow Debt? Policymakers were largely caught flat-footed by how vital MBS had become to the functioning of funding markets, and had to scramble to adjust to the reality on the ground. One reason for that was that they hadn’t focused on the growth of shadow banking, to their detriment. But Americans are also engaging in a murkier sort of borrowing, that of “buy now, pay later” plans. And this “shadow debt” isn’t being reported in any official statistics.

Rather than paying off their purchases during the interest-free grace period, they’re piling up debt just like they are with their credit cards. By some estimates Americans have built up over $700 billion in debt through these payment plans, and it has gone largely unnoticed.

This debt isn’t reported to credit card bureaus, it isn’t gathered and reported by federal agencies, and it likely isn’t taken into account when policymakers make monetary policy. It’s a huge mountain of unseen debt that is weighing heavily on American households and that could harm them significantly during the next recession.

https://www.newsmax.com/finance/trevorgerszt/shadow-debt-banking/2024/05/16/id/1164983/

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Joe Biden And Kamala Harris Pledge More Than $16 Billion To HBCUs

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have pledged more than $16 billion to HBCUs in America. On Thursday (May 16), the Biden-Harris Administration announced a new record in Federal funding and investments in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

RELATED : Jeff Bezos’ Ex-Wife MacKenzie Scott Donates $1.7B To HBCUs & More

The unprecedented pledge totals more than 1$16 billion from Fiscal Years (FY) 2021 through 2024. It’s reported that the new total is up from the previously announced over $7 billion and follows “additional actions already undertaken” by the Biden-Harris Administration for HBCUs in America.

When broken out, the Biden-Harris Administration says the $16 billion-plus pledge “includes over $11.4 billion between FY 2021 and FY 2023 through Federal grants, contracting awards, and debt relief for HBCUs; $4 billion between FY 2021 and FY 2023 for HBCU-enrolled students through federal financial aid and educational benefits for veterans; and so far in FY 2024, over $900 million has been secured for Department of Education programs strengthening HBCUs as institutions.”

Joe Biden has since taken to his X account (formerly Twitter) to speak on the $16 billion pledge to HBCUs. He wrote, “HBCUs are responsible for: 40% of Black engineers, 50% of all Black teachers,70% of all Black doctors and dentists, and 80% of all Black judges. Today I am proud to announce we’ve invested over $16 billion in HBCUs, the most ever by any Administration.”

https://www.blackenterprise.com/biden-harris-administration-historic-hbcu-funding-16-billion/#:~:text=Harris%20announced%20the%20record%2Dlevel,the%20institutions%2C%20reported%20by%20HBCUBuzz.

GREEN NEW DEAL: Experts are working hard to make insects part of your diet. The ‘yuck factor’ may be the biggest hurdle

The study, presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Venice, Italy, surveyed 603 U.K. adults about their attitudes towards consuming insects. The results revealed that only 13 percent of respondents were willing to regularly eat insects, while 47 percent said they would not be willing to do so. However, the researchers found that incorporating insect flours into processed foods, such as bread or pasta, could help to overcome the disgust factor associated with eating whole insects.

In fact, food production accounts for up to a quarter of all human greenhouse gas emissions, with livestock being a major contributor. By contrast, insect farming requires less land, water, and feed than traditional livestock and produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, insects emit 80 times less methane than cattle per kilogram of body weight.

https://studyfinds.org/yuck-factor-eating-bugs/

Revealed: Deadly epidemic of super-strength Chinese opioids gripping Britain’s streets

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/revealed-deadly-epidemic-super-strength-133425553.html#:~:text=Six%20people%20in%20the%20UK,a%20terrifying%20escalation%20in%20fatalities.

One of the biggest credit card companies is quietly introducing a secret AI weapon to combat billion-dollar financial fraud — Visa will verify every single transaction in real time to eliminate rampant enumeration attacks

https://www.techradar.com/pro/one-of-the-biggest-credit-card-companies-is-quietly-introducing-a-secret-ai-weapon-to-combat-billion-dollar-financial-fraud-visa-will-verify-every-single-transaction-in-real-time-to-eliminate-rampant-enumeration-attacks#:~:text=Visa's%20new%20AI%20model%20reportedly,compared%20to%20other%20risk%20models.

Newfound autoimmune syndrome tied to COVID-19 can trigger deadly lung scarring

The syndrome — which scientists have dubbed "MDA5-autoimmunity and interstitial pneumonitis contemporaneous with the COVID-19 pandemic," or MIP-C for short — is a rare, serious condition in which the immune system inadvertently attacks the body

https://www.livescience.com/health/coronavirus/newfound-autoimmune-syndrome-tied-to-covid-19-can-trigger-deadly-lung-scarring#:~:text=The%20syndrome%20%E2%80%94%20which%20scientists%20have,system%20inadvertently%20attacks%20the%20body.

Inflation Is Eating Away at the Middle Class

Middle-class retiree financial wealth sank 14.2% since 2021, owing to inflation-fueled withdrawals that surpassed the usual amounts, according to Boston College estimates. Things could be worse. Should the economy fall into a recession, their wealth would drop nearly 17%, estimates suggest. Between 2021 and 2023, retirees increased their withdrawal amounts by nearly $2,000 each year on average. While Social Security ebbs and flows each year in response to inflation, distributions from employer-sponsored pension plans do not.

https://247wallst.com/investing/2024/05/19/inflation-is-eating-away-at-the-middle-class/#:~:text=Middle%2Dclass%20retiree%20financial%20wealth,nearly%2017%25%2C%20estimates%20suggest.

Joe Biden’s illegal alien invaders have been increasingly getting caught trying to record or sneak into US military bases. The national security risk that Biden’s open border policies have created for America should be unquestionable at this point.

Isn’t it obvious now when we have food processing plants exploding in the middle of the night and ships crashing into bridges all the time? Biden has allowed teams of foreign commandos, saboteurs, and spies into the country and they are wreaking havoc every single day.

One Member of Congress says they are also getting creative when it comes to finding new ways to sneak onto military bases.

https://www.americanlibertyreportnews.com/articles/foreign-saboteurs-are-smashing-american-infrastructure-on-joe-bidens-watch/

Families Flee Boy Scouts of America as Organization Moves Toward ‘Progressive Vision’

Some families are eyeing faith-based alternatives to the Boy Scouts – soon to be rebranded to Scouting America – as some say the organization has left its founding mission behind.

“Anytime organizations lose their rootedness, and especially if we chase these progressive visions, we end up waking up in a world that’s really hard to recognize and very difficult to navigate, and I think that’s what’s happening to some of these organizations,” Matt Markins, president and CEO of faith-based organization Awana, told ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ on Sunday.

https://www.cf.org/news/families-flee-boy-scouts-of-america-as-organization-moves-toward-progressive-vision/

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May 24Liked by Edwin

The catabolic anaerobic digestion of society is completely natural. It's a cycle... Nothing more. Sun rises sun set nothing new under the sun

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Yeah, not even the 2cnd Amendment.

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Yeh its Ecclesiastes quote.

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Brace Yourself For What's Coming in 2024 - Victor Davis Hanson

https://rumble.com/v3yh01a-brace-yourself-for-whats-coming-in-2024-victor-davis-hanson.html

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Predictive history is as boring as it is irresponsible.

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Boring, irresponsible, or a last chance to change course.

Of course, don't mind me, you have it all figured out!

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Where’s the hope or the agency to ‘change course’ in a doom title like that???

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You are asking me?

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We have departments of everything to cover these issues, unfortunately, they are all making the situation worse, not better. There needs to be a turnaround in all of them, period.

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